


A Strange Fashion of Forsaking

by petrichoral



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, Yuletide Treat, it would be dubcon if they had sex but they don't, missing-scene-type canon divergence AU, set just before the endgame of Disorderly Knights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:49:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrichoral/pseuds/petrichoral
Summary: Near the end of the contest for St Mary’s, Gabriel makes one last bid for Lymond’s soul.
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Graham Reid Malett
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Strange Fashion of Forsaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halcyonine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonine/gifts).



St Mary’s lay quiescent, the candles guttering in windows where soldiers lay exhausted after a punishing day of drills, when Gabriel came to Lymond.

Lymond’s quarters were a single room, next to his officers’, in a wing over a stable. He had, for luxuries: a writing desk, two candle holders, and the strongbox which held St Mary’s carefully-weighed funds. Currently he was stretched out on the bed pallet, gazing unseeingly at the ceiling, as though the rough slats might provide a different set of possibilities to the ones facing him now.

There was no way around it: Gabriel held all the cards. Lymond, though not given to relitigating the past, occasionally wondered if there had been a way to avoid this deadly game of chess that had occupied his every waking thought for a year—the one he currently stood to lose—but every time he stepped down in his memory from the sun-baked wood of the French brigantine to the cracked white clay of Malta, matters played out the same. He had come to Gabriel’s attention. And Gabriel, fatally, had come to his.

To abandon the game was to set Gabriel loose on Scotland. To play on his terms was to die. Lymond had wrestled agonisingly with whether he could tell anyone who might yet be an ally, here in what should be his own last bastion, but he had history as a guide there: Lymond was not believable. He could plan, and strategize, and outmanoeuvre, but he could not appeal even to his own family with any success. Francis Crawford of Lymond, Comte de Sevigny, master of escapes, had finally come up empty-handed.

A knock on the door. Lymond tensed and sat up.

“Francis,” a deep, melodious voice said. It settled into Lymond’s ears like the plucked string of a lute reverberates through the wood.

For a moment Lymond made no answer. Then he gave a terrible smile at the wall in front of him and, without turning, called, “Enter.”

Gabriel, Grand Cross—still—of the Noble Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, had a peculiar way of entering a room. He would duck his blazing gold head through the door, as if to hide his splendid height, and carefully shut the door, and then turn to give the room the full sunlight of his presence. Lymond thought distantly that, however he lied to himself, he had never been immune to the effect, not since the first few days on Malta. Even now it was hard not to imagine the right hand of God himself had just entered the room.

There was no reason for Gabriel to be here now.

With every nerve singing, Lymond swung his legs off the table. He said coolly, “I rather thought I’d tired you all out today. Eschewing your bed to look for more fragments of my soul?”

Gabriel gave a shake of his head that was at once melancholy and amused. “No, I’m afraid this is rather more secular.” He was carrying a burden: a flat stone, half-wrapped in a cloth, as though hot. Lymond’s eyes dropped to it enquiringly. “You were having trouble at practice today,” Gabriel said. “Your shoulder.”

Lymond rotated the offending limb. It had less than the full range of movement; a wound sustained in Gabriel’s presence in fact, when Lymond had arrested his flight from the besieged city of Mdina by throwing them both into a madcap tumble down the ruins of the walls. “Your concern about my health is touching,” he said, “but unnecessary. I am the commander of this outfit. Allow me to be the judge of my own health.”

Gabriel’s face was that of a saint, agonised with tender concern for the flaws of the fallen world. “I know,” he said, “but forgive me my worries. You are our commander: I would not see you as less than you can be. The application of heat to the afflicted area--”

“There is no need,” Lymond said.

In anyone else’s presence, Gabriel would have backed off, managing at the same time a self-deprecating joke finely tuned to expose Lymond. Here, in the private space of Lymond’s room, he did not.

In the moment before Gabriel took hold of his arm, Lymond considered and discarded reaching for his sword on the other side of the bed. He and Gabriel, like the black queen and the white, were here precisely because neither of them could be easily killed out of hand. He circled back to his earlier thought: Gabriel had no reason to be here. Gabriel, however longing and disappointed his smiles, was aware Lymond understood his character. Lymond was the one person he knew—he _must_ know—he could not make an ally of. There was no reason for concern in private.

Lymond’s calculations ceased as Gabriel took his arm, the warm, calloused hands closing round it with the same inescapable skill as Gabriel wielded his battle axe. Lymond had been prepared for this to hurt; what wiped his mind to a blank fog was, instead, the sheer relief that came from the heat of the hot stone and the motion of Gabriel’s deft thumb smoothing a knot of muscle.

“Does it pain you at night?” Gabriel said.

Lymond battled for clarity in his own thoughts. He twisted around, making Gabriel fumble to keep the stone applied. “What is this about, exactly? Thank God, you are not the doctor for this merry band. Maybe you would recommend drugs? Perhaps the opium you import from your friends abroad, and use to create dependencies in my men?”

Gabriel’s lucid blue eyes snapped to his in shock. But Lymond was long past that deception. “Or you could try your hand at making me addicted to spirits, like you did poor Adam Blacklock. I own I should like to see the attempt. What else is there, let’s see—gambling, women?” He was now perilously close to letting slip the extent of his knowledge of Gabriel’s plan. Gabriel’s warm hand enclosed his shoulder. Lymond continued blithely, “ _Quidam ludunt, quidam bibunt, quidam indiscrete vivunt?_ You have a veritable king’s board of choices.”

That magnificent, hyacinthine gaze settled on Lymond’s face, and for a moment the wound in it was so deep, so true, that even Lymond’s heart gave a twinge. _What if you were wrong?_ a voice whispered at him, one that had been his constant companion at Birgu and Tripoli. _What if it were real?_ The stone pressed into his back, at first warming, was now heating into something like a brand. Lymond could not bring himself to move his arms.

And then Gabriel smiled. It was a mischievous smile, like a golden boy caught stealing apples, and the devil danced in his eyes. “You are harsh,” he said. He removed the stone; the initial relief was followed by an unpleasant rush of cold Scottish air and a spasm in Lymond’s shoulder. “You have always been so.”

He laid the stone on Lymond’s writing desk, casually claiming the space, and sat on the only camp-stool, across from Lymond on the bed. “Try it now.”

Lymond did not move. “Why are you here?”

Gabriel had a godly presence; it was remarkable how quickly that crooked, merciless smile could turn it into a terrible one. “I thought you would value one last chance.”

“To save my soul?” Lymond said coolly.

In the silence, the candlelight flushed Gabriel’s fine cheeks and gilded his hair in bright, rich flickers. The dancing devil in his eyes strengthened. Lymond felt the cliff-edge give way under his feet; heard the faint rumbling of pebbles gathering momentum.

“To live,” Gabriel said.

There was a slight, almost indiscernible movement as Lymond wetted his dry lips. Gabriel’s gaze followed it.

“To live,” Lymond said, testing, though he knew the answer. “In the palaces of God’s eternal glory, one might assume?”

Gabriel smiled. “I think both you and I know that you are far beyond that.”

He got to his feet as he spoke and rested his hand on the table, with the same possessive confidence as that hand had enclosed Lymond’s shoulder. Gabriel of the Order waited patiently for Lymond’s answer in the aura of candlelight. It was as if St Mary’s, Scotland, nothing else existed except this small room, and beyond this great man, only the darkness.

Lymond leaned back against the wall and regarded Gabriel coolly. “So,” he said. “ _’Join me’_?”

“No,” Gabriel said ruefully. “You’ve passed that. You know as well as I that we cannot exist in the same sphere; we will fight until one of us masters the other, though one side of the competition was always in vain.”

“Then what?”

Gabriel’s eyes rested on him steadily. The room narrowed to only that splendid and awful face.

Gabriel said, “Serve me.”

Lymond surged to his feet without thought. His pulse fluttered in his neck like a fever sickness. He stopped face to face with the other man, close enough to duel, close enough to embrace. An ember shifted in the fireplace, sending out a flare of heat.

For three long breaths, neither man moved.

“So this is your offer,” Lymond said lightly, breaking the silence. “I take it this will spare me from the ruin and death that will otherwise fall to me?” It was a heady feeling, to say out loud what had been of fatal necessity silent.

“It would be a waste,” Gabriel said simply. “I have always said that. Your talents, your abilities, your God-given form—"

A strangled laugh was ripped involuntarily from Lymond. “You invoke God?” he said. “You invoke God _now_? I haven’t been in regular contact, I admit, but surely He might have some differing opinions on the matter.”

“You blaspheme,” Gabriel said gently, “because you have no anchor. The life you lead is unsustainable. I have observed you, you know, while you were observing me. I have seen you hesitate to enter a church and yet long for holy ground. You built your defences against the Order because you knew that otherwise you would join us. Sooner or later, your efforts to fight would have led you to destruction. Looks inside yourself. You have always known that.”

Lymond, uncharacteristically, was silent. Gabriel waited the silence out with the intensity of prayer.

“Give me your terms,” Lymond said. A hoarse edge laced his voice.

Gabriel placed his hand on Lymond’s good shoulder, too generous for triumph. “This does not have to be a punishment,” he said quietly. “Francis, I hope it is not. But my terms are: you serve me.” His grip tightened. “You will be my second-in-command. My sworn brother. You will travel with me wherever I go. Together, we will take this pitiful force and turn it into something that can take an army, a country. Scotland. France. True rule, true kingship, requires only faith and a finger on the scales. I will be generous.” His eyes were pitiless sapphires. “You will follow my wishes in every matter, however small. You will do nothing outside them.”

“Or you destroy me,” Lymond said flatly. “And I imagine, by that point, I will have given you everything you need to make it very easy.”

Gabriel’s smile widened, though still not in victory. “I need you,” he said simply, and like every other word he had uttered in the last few minutes, this rang with a dreadful truth. “And even more so, Francis, you need me.”

“And if I choose the path of pious self-denial?” Lymond said.

“You have nothing else,” Gabriel said, with the same rich, tender gentleness as he dispensed blessings. He had not moved his hand. “Your family have flung you away. Half your men will follow only me. And as for your friends, your allies?” A sorrowful note entered his voice, as if he mourned them himself. “Think of Will Scott, my friend. Then think of the rest.”

“Oh, I am,” Lymond said.

Gabriel finally released him, though there was no relief from the radiance of that presence, which burned like a pyre only an arm’s length away. “You long for God and yet you fear Him. Why?” he said. “I can tell you. What you hunger for is the purpose of a power higher than yourself, and you will never be at peace without it. You have only known schemes, and artifice, and the small gratitude of small men who send you on their errands then betray you once the door is closed once more. I can bring you into that room. I can satiate the endless void within you. I can give you splendour.”

Lymond’s hand was clenched white at his side. An onlooker might have seen it as a trick of the light that the candlelight reflected off water in those unseeing eyes.

In a sudden movement, he slipped away, evading Gabriel’s grip on him as if the Grand Cross had tried to grasp a handful of sand. Gabriel’s fist clenched on thin air. “I thank you,” Lymond said coolly. “Truly. I would find it persuasive, but as a matter of fact I sought splendour, when I was young, and _thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise._ Nonetheless, the offer is generous. It pains me to do as I must, and decline. If you will excuse me.”

Gabriel blinked. It seemed inconceivable he would not have expected it, but something about the man’s overwhelming certainty, like the rock upon which the world is built, had made this a surprise. As Lymond turned away, Gabriel’s face twisted into a snarl, and he seized the front of Lymond’s shirt and bore him down bodily.

Lymond fought like a wildcat, gouging instantly for Gabriel’s eyes, while Gabriel cursed and grabbed his wrist. The two men fell, locked in a silent, desperate struggle, neither of them willing to make any noise that might be heard by outsiders. But one was the elder and more experienced, and that together with sheer weight of muscle and sinew gave Gabriel the advantage, enough to press Lymond back on the bed in the awkward position in which they fell.

After the first flash of fury on Lymond’s face, it cleared, and his wrists in Gabriel’s iron grip ceased to struggle. Gabriel watched him warily, both of them knowing it would take only the slightest crack on Gabriel’s unparalleled defences for Lymond to use. “What now, Sir Graham?” Lymond said sardonically. “You have a dagger, or my sword is over there, or I suppose in an emergency you could stave in my skull with the fireplace poker. Would you like to call in the others to witness?”

Lymond’s expression might have relaxed into normality, but Gabriel’s had not; there was something flayed and terrible about it. Gabriel’s grip tightened around his wrists, forcing his arms back into a position that put stress on his aching shoulder. It had no visible effect. “ _You cannot win_ ,” he said. His eyes searched Lymond’s, as if this might provide answers. “You have no notion of the sword over your head. You know so little, and yet you have no hesitation in forcing me to such lengths.”

As cold and remote as a distant icon, the pallor of his skin hallowed by dust, Lymond gave no reply.

Gabriel shook him like an erring dog. “You must know you have found your master,” he said. “What will it take to make you admit it?”

Lymond spat.

The world hung on its axis. There was something transcendental about Gabriel’s eyes, fixed on Lymond below, as if the very fabric of the world had parted to show him a kingdom beyond. “My son,” Gabriel said, his voice grave and savage. “ _I forgive you_.”

He released Lymond and got slowly to his feet. Lymond did not try to speak to him; and there was an air about Gabriel that suggested he could not have been reached by any mortal man. “You belong to me,” he said. “Alive or dead, I have your soul.”

The door shut behind him.

“ _They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,_ ” Lymond quoted, sing-song, to the ceiling. He stretched the sore arm, still flat on his back, and then laughed. “ _Dear heart,_ would that have been a better reply? I suppose I should have played more of the innocent, but then again, we are near the end of this.”

Joleta was already on the move; she had only to tell Jerott, pawns among pawns, and the crimes Gabriel had planted on Lymond would rear their heads. The avalanche was already rumbling beneath his feet and there was no end but the final settling of every stone. Lymond stared at the rough ceiling and ran through a list of names in his head.

The moon sank below the window frame. Francis Crawford of Lymond rose up, took writing paper, and set out to destroy Gabriel.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your letter, it was a joy to read!
> 
> Source notes: the Latin is from Carmina Burana (some gamble, some drink, some live it up), and the English is all cribbed from the Wyatt poem "They flee from me, that sometime did me seek", in The Lymond Poetry.


End file.
